My fiancé and I are planning on getting married... The only problem is, he is still married to his first wife, but hasn't had any contact with her in 14 years. We know nothing about her, where she lives, whether she is even alive. What can we do ?

Well you should not make any plans soon to be married, he can not get married until he gets a divorce. Any marriage he would do without a divorce would ot be legal or binding. And acutally illegal.

He needs to get an attorney and file for divorce, there is procedure for search and for legal posting if you can not find her.

I hope he is living in the same state that they maintained a marital residence. At least, he may recall the address where they were last together. However, many folks move from state to state, so he could have relocated. In that event, he can file in his new state. The court will take jurisdiction of the case to dissolve the marriage, and only the marriage, if he cannot properly have her served with the petition. Of course, that may be all he wants anyway.

This happened to my uncle. I am fairly certain it will vary from state to state, however, he had to take out an ad in the largest local media source searching for her, write all known addresses, try to locate new contact info via the net, etc. After 30 days of ZERO results and another 45 days waiting for return letters (that never came) from the previous addresses the state considered it a case of "abandonment" and issued a divorce. The whole process took about 6 months and wasn't terribly costly - much less than a regular divorce would be.

IF your fiance's ex-wife does happen to respond it may hinder OR it may advance the case. It all depends on their relationship and her willingness to assist in the situation.

Best of luck.

I thank you all for your input . We are going to contact a lawyer and see what can be done, I'm sure we are all living in the same state and as far as the comment made about abandonment... I'm sure that is what we can go on... being that she left him 14 years ago for another women!!

How long were they married? Sue her for fraud. He may want to check the records in that she may have already divorced him. Just a thought.

They were only married for 6 months... they spoke about a divorce right after she left him but it was to expensive, and in the state of NY you can't have same sex marriages, so she has nothing to lose.

He'll need a divorce. He'll need to file for one. He'll have to make a good faith attempt to contact her and document said attempt to the court's satisfaction. Then a divorce decree can be issued and he'll be free to marry you. But it's rather curious as to how it came to be that he's still legally married but hasn't seen his wife in 14 years and literally doesn't know if she's dead or alive.

All in all he's still legally married to her because the issue of marriage has never came up in any past relationships that he has had... till this one with the two of us,, and she is gay so the need for her to marry can not happen. So why would she care whether or not she is divorced